Real estate: What does the future look like for realtors?

I’m working on a story this week about two applications by the Canadian Competition Bureau that may affect the work of realtors in the future.

The first application, which the Canadian Real Estate Association agreed to last October, gives Canadians the ability to choose which services they want from a real estate agent when selling their home, and to pay only for those selected services. For example, a customer could pay a realtor for placing their home on the Multiple Listing Service, and pay only for that, while doing the rest of the selling themselves.

The second application, which is still being considered, could give consumers access to information that was previously only available when provided by a realtor. The application seeks to have the Toronto Real Estate Board approve allowing realtors to have a “virtual office” that buyers can access with a user name and password, and that would give them access to information not provided on realtor.ca. Examples of the type of information that would be available include statistics such as the number of days a property has been on the market, or selling history or even community information such as the crime rate in the surrounding neighbourhood.

I would like to know what people think of these two applications. Would you like to see more information freely available online? Would you use the services of an a la carte realtor? Do you think these changes will be better for realtors, or make their lives more difficult? Let me know what you think by emailing tsherlock@vancouversun.com.